What is WordPress?

What is WordPress *loads Wiki page*

From humble beginnings in 2003, WordPress content management systems now powers 45% of all web site. 65% of all web sites with a backend system is WordPress . A fifth of all WordPress sites are e-commerce sites.

Why is it so widely used?

60,000 plugins that can extend the usage of WordPress . 30,000 themes, both free and commercial, help a user or business unlimited possibilities to create site that matches their brand or personality.

Impressive. But what can go wrong?

Any this is where relying on 3rd party software goes to pot.

Let’s first discuss your web site, and the layers involved in keeping it up. So to speak.

A web server has multiple layers.

1. The operating system. Most people use Windows by Microsoft, the majority of web servers use Linux.
2. Software that runs the web site, either Apache, NginX or LiteSpeed.
3. The software that runs the web site, in WordPress ‘ case, this is PHP language and MySQL database.
4. The WordPress framework written in PHP and storing all data in a MySQL database.
5. Themes, plugins and custom code written by developers.

Not to mess around being polite, as you go down that list, the abilities and skills of the people get more iffy. Layers 1 to 3, I have high confidence, and in my 19 years of using WordPress , I’ve never known an issue at this level. Hosting companies are a few months behind the tech curve, and are damn careful releasing immature software.

Layer 4, WordPress itself. Yeah this happens more than you’d probably realise, hence the constant stream of hotfixes to a vulnerability that’s been found, or some botched piece of code from a contributor.

And finally we reach the frontline, the place I call home. Writing themes, plugins and code and that’s where 99% of WordPress issues happen.

Developers are only vaguely human, and despite the egos of titanic proportions, they make mistakes.